The Italian
financial market regulator, Consob, continues its fight against illegal trading
platforms, adding four new names to its blacklist. Among them was a clone of
the Northern American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex), a US-based platform for
retail investors allowing short-term binary options trading.
New Brokers on the Consob List
The newly
added platforms are Prime Markets (primemarkets.co.com), Fintech Market
(fintechmarket.consulting), Luxem Capital, Inc. (luxemcapital.com), and Nadex
CFD Limited (nadexcfd.com).
At the time
of writing, the Nadex clone site is unresponsive. However, the other three are
fully operational, offering access to trading based on contracts for difference
(CFDs). Italian customers will not have access to them after the block
introduced by Consob, which is possible thanks to regulations introduced in
2019.
“Consob
draws investors’ attention to the importance of adopting the utmost diligence
in order to make informed investment choices, adopting common sense behaviors,
essential to safeguard their savings: these include, for websites that offer
financial services, checking in advance that the operator with whom they are
investing is authorized, and, for offers of financial products, that a
prospectus has been published,” the regulator commented in the written
statement.
After
adding four more entities to the list of blocked sites, the total number of
blacked-out addresses since July 2019 has risen to 898.
Proactive Approach of the
Italian Regulator
Consob is
one of the most active regulators in the European financial market, which
regularly monitors the Internet, blocking offers from suspicious or unregulated
entities.
Finance
Magnates reported
two weeks ago that the regulator blocked four more sites, including an XTB
clone named XTB Empire and a Virtu Financial clone named Virtu Finance.
Also, SolidXM,
FX Alta, New Finance LLC, and NEWFX Ltd were added to the list earlier in April.
The Cypriot
CySEC is another market watchdog that regularly updates its warning lists. A
month ago, it warned retail investors against eight more illegal CFD trading
platforms. CySEC listed the websites as world-trade-center.io, financista.com,
swiftpuprime.com, ocdfinances.net, and ocdfinances.org. The other three are:
inverbid.net, inverbid.com, and inverbid.co.
Attack of the Clones
In the
financial industry, a clone broker is a fraudulent entity that uses the details
of a legitimate, regulated broker to deceive investors into thinking they are
dealing with the actual, regulated broker.
This can
include using a similar name, website design, or even copying specific details,
such as registration numbers or addresses, from the legitimate broker. Clone
brokers typically aim to scam investors out of their money by either running
off with deposits or giving false trading advice leading to losses.
Investors
need to verify the authenticity of a broker before entrusting their funds. This
can be done by cross-referencing the broker’s details with those listed on the
regulator’s official website, ensuring contact details match, and looking for
any inconsistencies in branding or website design.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
